Resource Officers

Wayne Pierre of the NRA suggested that schools should have arms guards, a notion that was instantly vilified and ridiculed by the Left.

Obama adopts the NRA proposal for increased armed guards in schools, in a speech which was portrayed as “one of his greatest” by the same Left.

The language of double standards

Those two aspects seem a bit dissonant, but aren’t in their minds. It is a simple application of double standard. Obama, to make it less obvious that he was adopting the NRA guards proposal, used this language:

Strengthening our student support systems with more resource officers, psychologists, social works and counselors will help reduce gun violence in our schools and our communities. (From a January 18th Duncan post on the Official White House Blog of the Department of Education.)

Lessons from Columbine?

You might recall that in recent discussion, various Leftist blogs complained that the “resource officer” at the Columbine school was ineffective in stopping Harris and Klebold. That was certainly true — but as he happened to be outside the school getting lunch at a Subway when the attack began, he was simply another responding officer. (He also was not wearing his glasses when he exchanged fire with Harris at “60 or 70 yards,” which figured into a negligence lawsuit.) A lot more details of Columbine — which was intended as a bombing bigger than Oklahoma City, not a shooting — can be seen here.)

Harris and Klebold would have been aware of Gardner; it was his second year at the school. Perhaps they were aware of Gardner’s habit of getting lunch early, and planned their attach (which started around 11:15am) to take advantage of that. I’ve never seen this discussed, but it seems likely to me; the pair planned their attack over a period of more than eight months.

I do think, overall, that Obama’s (really Wayne La PIerre’s) idea of having armed individuals in schools is a good one. But it does not go far enough. Allowing teachers to own and carry weapons at school if they so desire would largely put an end to such mass killings, which happen almost invariably were such defenses have been made illegal.

Mass killers: The goal and the deterrence

The killers, from Columbine to Aurora to Newtown, seem bent on painless suicide accompanied by tremendous media glorification, as regularly happens. They do not like the idea of attacking places that may be defended; as soon as defenses actually appear, they either immediately kill themselves or give up peacefully. They don’t like the idea of actually getting shot.

I don’t either, which is why eliminating defense free zones would be the best deterrent for the rare mass murders when they occasionally occur.

But the larger issue is criminal violence in inner cities, particularly defense-free zones such run by leftists such as Chicago, Washington DC, Detroit and New York City. New York has just taken the further step of making even slingshots or defensive walking canes illegal. This will make their violence problems worse, of course.

But like Obama’s 23 proclamations, these actions are not aimed at actually solving any real problems. And Obama is continues the silly delusion that a gun is more dangerous if it looks military, as of “military-style” meant anything tactically. They are not, of course, capable of automatic fire as are the military versions. The weapons merely look impressive, and are “scary” to foolish, ignorant persons.

They scare President Obama.

What does he mean, “dangerous?”

Obama’s remarks included this bit:

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

It begs the question of what President Obama considers dangerous people. But there is an answer to that question: In short, me. And people like me.

One of his first acts as President was to rush out hastily-prepared reports on left- and right-wing extremists, downplaying the threat from the left and labeling right-wingers (us, really) as “potential domestic terrorists.”

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The main reason I’m against teachers carrying firearms, especially in the cities, is because many of them are in bed with the unions and do not have much self-control, common sense and usually their intelligence is sub-par. Another concern is whether these people are stable and won’t go off half cocked and shoot someone just because the student has a different point of view.